


3 Apologies Not Made

by Actually_Felicity_Smoak



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: AU, Forgiveness, Season 6 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-02-28 09:09:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13268250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Actually_Felicity_Smoak/pseuds/Actually_Felicity_Smoak
Summary: What needed to (and didn't) happen after the Season 6 mid-season finale





	1. Chapter 1

"You were wrong, Oliver." Digg's voice was quiet. But since Rene and Curtis had left, the lair had gotten a lot quieter; no one had any difficulty hearing him. Nor was there anything to fill the silence that followed the statement. Felicity pretended to be buried in her work, but the lack of typing betrayed the ruse.

In some ways it was easier with just OTA in the bunker. They all knew each other, knew each other's speaking styles, knew when to talk and when to stay silent. Conversations flowed quickly and smoothly, with no pauses to consider how to phrase a point to meet everyone's communication style, or the effect a statement would have on group dynamics. 

Digg would never have said that with any of the recruits in the bunker. He'd always been careful to preserve the chain of command, and to keep any dissension behind closed doors. But with just the three of them here, he was once again able to speak freely without causing any problems with the team. And so he did. 

Felicity waited silently. She didn't have to turn around to know what was happening. Oliver was pissed off, and determined not to show it, and so he was sitting still and silent, fighting with his temper. No productive conversation would occur until he'd gotten control over himself, so neither she nor Digg said anything. 

"So what do you want me to do about it, Diggle?" Oliver's tone was harsh, but neither Felicity nor Digg flinched. Five years ago they might have taken that as sarcasm, or a threat; Rene would have taken it as a challenge. But they knew Oliver by now. It was a genuine question. Oliver was doing his best to control his temper, keep himself in check, and not let his emotions prevent him from solving the problem in front of them. So Digg answered that way. 

"Apologize, Oliver." 

"It's too late, John. What's done is done. We need to move forward." 

"This _is_ moving forward, Oliver." 

Felicity frowned. Digg waited. Oliver finally gave up trying to figure it out. "What do you mean?" 

"Five years ago you abandoned me on an op, left me in the line of fire of one of the world's greatest snipers firing curare-poisoned bullets." Oliver's face was very still, trying to hide his pain. "Didn't give me the slightest warning." Oliver closed his eyes, but Digg continued relentlessly. "And when I confronted you about it, you told me you were completely justified, and I had no right to be upset about it."

"John, I --" Oliver began, but Digg overrode him. 

"Two weeks ago, you said more or less the same thing to me in the hospital ... and then you came back a few hours later and apologized. Now. Which of those two people -- which Oliver Queen -- do you think represents making progress? Which of them do you want to be?" 

Oliver's voice was barely a whisper. "The second one." 

"Then go apologize."


	2. Chapter 2

Rene looked up at the knock on the apartment door. He hadn't expected anyone. He laid his cards face down on the couch next to the coffee table and waved a reassurance to Zoe. Then he reached into his pocket as-if-casually, and wrapped his fingers around the switchblade. He twisted it in his fingers until he could pull it out of his pocket and spring the blade out in one swift motion, as he unlatched the door chain and opened the door. 

Oliver Queen was standing outside.

Rene closed the door.

Oliver stood in the hallway with his fists clenched in his pockets. He'd have had to wait a few moments in any case, just to be sure he had his temper under control before he moved. But as he waited, he could hear Rene's voice through the door. 

"Zoe, hon, can you go play in your room for a bit? I just need to talk to this guy real quick." 

Oliver couldn't hear Zoe's question, but Rene's tone was one of reassurance. "No, just some stuff from that job I quit. Shouldn't take long, and then I can get back to kickin' your butt at rummy." Rene's voice faded towards the end, as if he were moving farther away. 

It was a minute and a half before the handle twisted again. Rene stood in the doorway. After a few seconds, he stepped aside into the kitchen, allowing Oliver to enter.

Oliver did so. Rene shut the door, crossed his arms, and leaned up against the stove. It might have looked casual except that somewhere between reassuring Zoe and opening the front door, he'd traded out his switchblade for a pistol. Rene's posture currently had it aimed somewhere over the kitchen table, but Oliver knew it could be aimed at him in the blink of an eye. 

Oliver took his hands out of his pockets and held them up, palm out. He walked over to the couch, sat down, and crossed his legs, thinking about how _difficult_ it was to look non-threatening to someone who's seen all your techniques for appearing to be a disinterested non-combatant. 

"Don't mess up the cards," Rene didn't move from his post, but his eyes were tracking Oliver's every movement. "Zoe's about to beat me, and I won't have you screwing that up." Oliver looked down at the sets of cards laid out on the coffee table, and scooched closer to the edge of the couch, away from the cards Rene had set down. He swallowed, trying to figure out how to start. 

"So what? You gonna try to bribe me into not testifying? Offer me all the riches of the Queen fortune?"

Oliver blinked. "No."

Rene's grip on the gun shifted. "Threats, then? You came by to show me how you know where I live? Tell me how Felicity knows Zoe's school schedule?"

"No!" Oliver sat back against the couch cushion, appalled. "Rene, no. I --" he choked on the words, had to start over. "I came to apologize." 

Rene's eyes narrowed. "Say what?"

"Apologize." Oliver realized he was looking at the floor, and dragged his eyes up to Rene's face. "I was wrong, Rene."

Rene said nothing, just shifted his weight. Oliver forced himself to continue. 

"You have every right to try to protect your family. I disagree with the way you went about it, but it wasn't my decision to make. I... I failed you, Rene." Oliver shrugged defensively. "You should have known that you could come tell us about that threat, that we would do everything in our power to make sure Zoe was safe. If you didn't feel comfortable with that, if you weren't _one hundred percent_ sure that we would have your back, then I was not doing my job as team leader." Oliver swallowed again. 

"I said that I forgave you, but I was still counting it against you, and that's not what forgiveness means. If I was going to set conditions for your behavior, to put you on probation, then I should have _told_ you that, rather than waiting until you screwed up to attack you about it. I --" Oliver shook his head. "I don't know. I don't know what the right answer was. But I know that what I did was certainly the wrong answer. And for that, I owe you an apology." 

Rene had relaxed, some, as Oliver spoke; the gun was now pointed at the kitchen floor. Now he tilted his head challengingly. "So what, hoss? You think you come here and say your pretty speech and you think that makes it all better? I'm gonna come work for you again like nothing happened?" 

Oliver shook his head. "No. I'm not asking you to come back. I'm not asking you to do anything. I'm here because I owe it to you. To tell you that I know I was wrong. I was wrong to forgive you conditionally without telling you. I was wrong to ignore the value you bring to the team. I was wrong to throw away our history and our relationship with so little consideration." Oliver took a deep breath and stood up. "And I'm sorry. I was wrong to kick you off the team. And you have every right to not want to come back." At the door he paused, his hand on the doorknob, and turned back. "But I need you to know that I would be honored to have a second chance. If you did want to join us again." He gave Rene a nod, and opened the door to leave.


	3. Chapter 3

"So... how did it go...?" Felicity swiveled in her chair as Oliver came through the elevator door.

Oliver didn't say anything. Just walked over to the table, sat down, and put his head in his hands. 

Felicity tried to imagine what that meant. Went well? Went poorly? Obviously Oliver hadn't come back with any of the new recruits in tow, eager to re-join Team Arrow. But that was -- Felicity admitted quietly to herself -- perhaps a bit much to hope for out of a single apology. But with no cues to go off of, she didn't know how to _help_.

Finally Oliver lifted his head. "Rene didn't shoot me." 

"That's... gooooood...." Felicity acknowledged. He _probably_ couldn't have shot and killed Oliver before Oliver was able to disarm him, but hand-to-hand combat is not the ideal outcome of an apology. But then, for most people, it wouldn't be on the list of _potential_ outcomes for an apology. 

Oliver read the skepticism on her face. "He shut the door in my face, and didn't open it again until he'd grabbed his gun. Shooting me was definitely on the table."

Felicity sat down across from him. "But he didn't."

"No." Oliver gave a short laugh. "I didn't mess up his rummy game, and he didn't attack me. So quite a successful communication, all things considered."

"Did he accept the apology?"

Oliver shrugged. "With Rene, who can tell? I mean... he didn't shoot me. So... probably?" 

Felicity decided to change the subject. 

"How about with the others? Did you talk to Curtis?"

She couldn't have pinpointed what, but something shifted in the mood of the room. Oliver sat up straighter, and looked at her instead of the table. 

"I thought about it. But the more I thought about it, the more I think that I don't need to apologize to Curtis." 

"Oliver, he quit the team."

"He did," Oliver acknowledged. 

"You might think he'll get over it, but this is not something Curtis takes lightly. Online privacy is a big thing for him, and --"

"And we violated that," Oliver finished for her. "And that's a deal-breaker for him. Fair enough. But I'm not the the one who ran surveillance on him, Felicity." 

He reached out and took her hand, gave it a reassuring squeeze, as if to mitigate the effects of his words. "I don't think I need to apologize to Curtis. I think you do."


	4. Chapter 4

Felicity was uncharacteristically quiet the next day. Not that it was unusual for her not to talk -- Curtis was used to days when she didn't speak at all. But usually those were what they called "hacking days". Days when one of them buckled down to attack some thorny problem that they had been struggling with for a while.

There wasn't, like, an official protocol for hacking days. But usually they'd give each other some notice. Like Curtis would say, "I think tomorrow I'm gonna tackle that overheating issue." Or Felicity would text him and say, "I've got some ideas for that router problem." And then the other person would know that the next day they should plan on not talking, and on making sure the person in problem-solving mode did things like eat, and drink, and go to the bathroom. Depending on how long the hacking "day" lasted, possibly make sure they slept. 

It was one of their ways of looking out for each other. 

Curtis kept looking at her out of the corner of his eye. She wasn't talking. But she wasn't hacking, either. She was staring out the window, as often as not. 

They didn't have to talk to know what the other person was going through. That was one of the reasons they made such a good team. But right now Curtis had no idea what Felicity was doing. It made him wonder whether he should have quit Helix Dynamics as well as Team Arrow. Maybe he just didn't have the relationship he thought he did, with Felicity. Maybe he'd never had the relationship he thought he did with anyone. Maybe he'd overestimated his relationship with Felicity, with Oliver, with Paul....

Curtis turned abruptly away, and picked up a screwdriver. The sudden movement caught Felicity's attention, and she turned to watch. Curtis had picked up the screwdriver, but he wasn't doing anything. He just held it in his hand, clenched in a fist, his grip getting tighter and tighter...

They didn't have to talk, to know what the other person was thinking. Felicity made her decision. 

"Curtis, I'm sorry."

She wasn't sure he was even going to answer. He didn't move for several seconds. But finally he turned around.

"What?"

"I'm sorry."

"It's..." He tried to wave it off. "It's fine. You don't hafta talk. I mean, if you don't want to. I mean, when we're working together. I mean, you _can_. If you want. I mean. I mean, you can do whatever. Really. I just..."

"What are you talking about?"

Curtis blinked. "What are you talking about?"

Felicity stared at him. "Surveillance. Spying on you."

"Oh." Curtis frowned. "Wait, what?"

Well, she'd already committed herself. There was nothing for it but to go on. It couldn't really get _more_ awkward. "I'm ... I'm sorry. For spying on you. I should... not have done that."

"'I'm sorry and I shouldn't have done that.' Is that really all you have for me?"

"I don't know what you want from me, Curtis!"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe some indication that you even understand what I'm upset about?"

"You're upset that I ran surveillance on you and the other recruits. Because... privacy."

"OK, first off, I'm a little upset that after a year and a half of working with you, risking our lives for you, and nearly getting _blown up_ on that damn island, we're still quote-unquote 'recruits', but let's set that aside for the moment. And yes, I am also upset because you completely violated any of our privacy rights. But I mean," he sat down, "Felicity, honestly, I'm worried about you."

"About me? I'm fine."

"You're not. Ever since you joined Helix -- I mean, that other Helix -- the real Helix -- I mean, we're the real Helix now, but the --"

"Evil Helix."

"Yes. You've been -- it's like you forgot how to treat people."

"I'm not -- what do you mean? I treat people just fine. I'm not -- am I?"

"You kinda are, Felicity. I mean, it's like you forgot that there's life outside the internet. Like hacking has consequences. You understand that, right?"

"So I suppose I should just let Oliver go to jail forever, should I?" Felicity began angrily.

"That's not what I'm saying. But you've gotten scary. You were scary in Russia, but --"

"But what, Curtis? You're saying I should have let John get executed for treason he didn't commit?"

"That's not what I'm saying, Felicity, and you know it! You're acting like --"

"Oh yes, _tell_ me what I know! Tell me how I'm acting --"

"You're thinking like _them_!" Curtis burst out, and Felicity froze at the scorn in his voice. 

"Like who?" she asked. 

Curtis waved a hand, the direction vague but the motion sharp and frustrated. "Like -- you know -- Oliver, Rene --"

"Like a vigilante? Curtis, I _am a_ \--"

"No! Like Adrian Chase, like Anatoly --"

"How can you even put them in the same category as --"

"Like a THUG!" Curtis exclaimed triumphantly. 

There was silence in the loft for several long, chilly seconds. "What did you just say?" Felicity said finally. 

Curtis looked miserable, but he faced her defiantly. "In the last year and a half, you have not been acting like a graduate of MIT '09. You are not acting like the brilliant hacker I know you can be."

 _I know you can be._ That was the most damning indictment Curtis could have put into words. That she could be a brilliant hacker -- but she wasn't. She wanted to snap back angrily, but the words froze in her throat, choking her. She was the daughter of Noah Kuttler; she was ghostfoxgoddess. She'd always been brilliant, and she'd been a hacker since the day she discovered the command line. If she wasn't a brilliant hacker then.... "What am I?" she whispered. 

Curtis mistook her devastation for aggression, or else he was just too upset to care what she was feeling. He continued furiously. "The world is just full of people who think in black and white, jump to conclusions, can't handle nuance or subtlety. No one wants to take the time to really _understand_ how a system works, or _why_ things happen the way they do. When I started work at Palmer Tech, I met someone else for the first time who understood things the way I do, who understood how big a difference you can make with the tiniest of changes; Mr. Palmer was -- was an inspiration and a role model for me, and then I met you, and you were even better than Mr. Palmer was. You could hack _anything_ , you understood all the threads and the connections and the secret doors, and it was like watching an incarnation of something I only dreamed I could be." Curtis sat down heavily. "And then you got new friends, and OK, I see why I'm not interesting enough for you, I know I can't keep up with you at that level, but --" he shook his head, "all of a sudden it's ' _there's no other way_ ' and ' _you can't make an omelette_ ' and ' _we don't have time to worry about ethics_ ' and I don't want to lose you but I can't follow where you're going..." He was crying now, his head bowed. 

Felicity was crying, too. She stood by Curtis' chair and put her hand on his shoulder. "Curtis. I --" she trailed off. What could she say?

"I lost Paul. I wasn't good enough for him, I couldn't do both and I chose you and Oliver and -- and feeling like I was making a difference. And I've lost Oliver and I'm losing you and maybe I wasn't ever really making a difference at all. Maybe I've never been good enough. For anyone." Curtis broke off and took a shuddering breath. He turned away and shrugged Felicity's hand off his shoulder. 

"Curtis --" 

"You know what? You're right." He stood up, his face still turned away from here. "This was a mistake. It was a mistake to think I ever could contribute anything to this -- this --" he gave up trying to find words, and started stuffing equipment in his backpack.

"That's not true. Curtis, you're a valuable member of this team."

"Please stop. Just stop. You don't need to try to make me feel better, Felicity. Just let me finish packing and I'll make sure you never see me again."

"But I don't _want_ you to finish packing --"

He froze. Swallowed. Zipped up his pack. "I'll just be -- I'll just --" he started towards the door. "I hope some of this shit is useful to you," he said bitterly. 

"Curtis, stop! Please!" Felicity broke out as his hand turned the doorknob. "Please! Let me -- you have to let me finish. Please? Just -- for old time's sake? For -- for what I used to mean to -- for what we used to have? Please?" Curtis stopped, but didn't turn around. "Five minutes, Curtis. Please?"

He didn't say anything, but he released the doorknob and took one step back into the room. Felicity took a deep breath.

"You are right. You are right and I'm wrong and I should never have -- I was trying to, to fight. I wanted to be strong, I wanted to be strong enough to face this -- to face what I did." Felicity's face was streamed with tears, and she made no attempt to wipe them away. "I killed people, Curtis. I killed thousands. You call Oliver a thug, you call Anatoly a bad guy, but I killed more people than John and Malcolm Merlyn and Adrian Chase put together, and I _know_ I didn't have a choice, I understand that; I really didn't. Someone had to make that choice and it's a terrible thing to have to choose but someone had to and I did and it was the best choice I had but it was still an awful thing to choose. An awful thing to do. It was the best choice available but that doesn't make them less dead. Thousands of families who lost husbands, wives, children, parents, and there wasn't even enough left of them to leave blood on my hands, just radioactive ash settling over everything, and that nuclear fallout is on my hands and no amount of washing will ever get rid of it. I have to live the rest of my life with that , with that knowledge, and I _can't._ I don't know how to go on living, with that, and not let it consume every moment of every day. But John does and Oliver does and somehow I have to keep going, keep fighting, like they do, and maybe that involves thinking like a thug but maybe only a thug can survive this and keep going. Maybe I can't _be_ a hacker anymore." Whispered: "Maybe that was another thing I inadvertently killed."

Curtis had turned around, as she spoke, and Felicity met his eyes with mascara running. "I didn't go to Helix because you're not good enough, Curtis. I went because _I_ wasn't. Because I didn't have enough skill, I didn't have enough resources, and I needed to do more, I needed to make amends, but it just made everything worse, made _me_ worse, and now I don't have the skills or the resources _or_ the strength or the integrity, and yes, you should go, because I have been a shit friend and a shit business partner, and if being around me is making you feel inadequate then you should definitely go away, you should get as far from me as you can because, Curtis, you are brilliant. You are amazing at hardware, and UI, and -- and loyalty and integrity and courage and -- and I don't know if you can patch things up with Paul, but I know, I _know_ that somewhere out there is a man who will value you for all the beautiful, joyful enthusiasm that you are and you radiate and --" 

She closed her eyes. "I'm sorry I didn't trust you. I'm sorry I surveilled you. I'm sorry I never gave you credit for everything you've done for me." Felicity inhaled. "Thank you for saving Oliver, even while you had the flu and no one would tell you what was happening. Thank you for letting me walk again. Thank you for being patient with me, and trying to bring me back from this thing I've become. Thank you for sticking with us for so long, and for giving us your genius, and for -- for --" She swallowed as her voice started slipping out of control, and her face tightened as she fought to speak evenly. "It was an honor to work with Mr. Teriffic. And with Curtis Holt. I'll -- I'll miss you. I'll get all this packed up and I'll send it to whatever address you want, so you don't have to stay and -- and be around me and -- and that's all. You can go, now. But thank you for letting me ... say. That."


	5. Chapter 5

John Diggle sat in the bunker, cleaning a gun.

He couldn't actually _shoot_ a gun yet, but Curtis had promised a prototype soon, and John wanted to be ready. Also John had worked out his stress by moving -- by doing something, by preparing -- for more than a decade, and it was easier to clean a gun he couldn't use than to stress himself out further by trying to break the habit.

His hands paused, just for an instant, as he remembered that Curtis would not be coming into the bunker today. _So I'll have to set up a time to meet with him_ , John thought firmly as he forced himself back into motion. Although Curtis had not promised to continue helping with the nerve damage, John had no doubt that he _would_. Curtis was reliable and loyal, and wouldn't let a personal grudge get in the way of helping a friend. It was a shame to lose him.

John sighed, put the reassembled pistol back, and locked the cabinet. He sighed again, looking around the lair. It was a shame to lose them all. They'd been a good team, and massively improved Team Arrow's ability to create significant effect for a minimum of damage. He knew that Oliver hadn't considered -- and Digg hadn't brought it up with him yet -- how severely limited their capabilities were right now: Felicity not operating at full capacity, although Oliver hadn't noticed it yet; Oliver bound by a promise to William not to endanger himself; and John not capable of shooting straight.

He stood up restlessly and paced around the lair. Just a few weeks ago he'd come to terms with the fact that being the Green Arrow was the life he most wanted. Now he was going to have to come to terms with the fact that it might never happen again.

But nothing's over until it's over, and in the meantime you keep as many lines of play open as you can, maximize future options, and try to maneuver to make the outcome you want as likely as possible. John reviewed possibilities as he pulled on boxing gloves.

Option 1: Get OTA back up to full capacity. John started some easy warm-up punches on the heavy bag. Oliver's limitations couldn't be got around; as long as William was a minor, Oliver would prioritize his well-being above that of the city. Maybe longer than that, but certainly until then. Everything that could be done there had already been done.

John backed up and did some kicks to loosen up his leg muscles. Felicity wasn't operating at full capacity; hadn't been since the night Oliver had killed Darhk. Since she'd had to make the tough call in order to save hundreds of thousands of lives. There wasn't a lot he could do about that either. He'd talked to her about it; he'd made sure to be there whenever she needed support. He'd gently corrected her every time she called herself a murderer. If there was something else he could provide to her, he didn't know what it was.

And as for himself -- he twisted his neck, stretching, as he moved back in towards the bag -- he couldn't do anything until Curtis got back to him with a prototype. John winced as his wrist trembled and his right jab went skidding along the edge of the punching bag.

Option 2: Build a different team Arrow, with new recruits. John ran over it again, looking for flaws in his reasoning, but he didn't come to any different conclusions than he had the last several times he'd run this calculation. It was risky to bring more people into the secret; especially with an FBI agent in Star City specifically looking for a tattler. New recruits would require training and integration into the team, which would take a lot of time. It would be near impossible to get Oliver to accept new recruits right now. And anyway, it wouldn't solve the fundamental problem, which was Oliver's "trusting people" PTSD trigger. Bring on new recruits, and odds were good that Oliver would drive them away as well. The only way to stop the cycle was to stop Oliver's panic from overreacting in the first place.

Which meant option 3 -- rebuild Team Arrow by convincing Rene, Dinah, and Curtis to come back -- was solidly the best option, even if -- or perhaps because -- it would be the hardest to implement. Digg started in on some basic heavy-bag workout: jab, cross, hook, hook. It would save on training and integration time; it would tie up the loose ends of having people not on the team who knew all their secrets. It didn't involve expanding the circle of need-to-know. And perhaps most importantly, it would require all of them to learn how to work together as a team -- _actually_ work as a team, not the surface-level tolerance they'd built up so far.

The beats sped up as he got into the rhythm -- jab cross hook hook jab cross hook hook -- and his heart rate sped up with it. A team was about more than just working in the field together, but Digg knew he was the only person on the team who really understood that. Rene and Oliver both were fiercely loyal, and would fight like demons to defend what they felt to be their responsibility, but that was as much out of animal territorialism as it was teamwork; they fought out of a sense of ownership, of things belonging to them, not out of a sense of belonging.

Curtis and Felicity did better, but their social cohesion was based on some underlying unspoken intellectual integration scheme that Digg couldn't see, much less interpret. But even with no understanding of where it came from, he could see how it worked, and how it worked was that Felicity won. Maybe not 100% of the time, but more often than Digg had seen in most any other social hierarchy, including military chains of command. In consequence, Curtis was pretty good at bending; he could adapt to someone else's need when necessary. But Felicity was still nearly as stubborn as Oliver; the only thing that kept _them_ working together was that they had clearly-defined territories about whose opinion would prevail in which circumstances: Felicity in all things electronic and Oliver in all things strategic. That and -- Digg snorted -- humans' tendency to become agreeable in the presence of someone they found sexually attractive, a trait that he had never been so grateful for.

And Dinah .... Digg's fists slowed, as his thoughts moved on to the last of the new team members. Dinah actually _had_ worked as part of a team -- as part of a _good_ team, by all accounts. She and Vince had depended on each other, listened to each other, cared for each other. She had trusted Vince, and had respected him enough -- and had been strong enough -- to keep caring for him after she had (as far as she knew) lost him forever. Dinah knew how to work on a team. She hadn't left because she didn't know how to negotiate, compromise, and reconcile. She'd left because she recognized a good team when she saw it -- and she didn't see one here.

He dropped his hands to his knees, gasping from the revelation as much as the exercise. It was a leap in logic, with little to back it up except his intuition, but John Diggle trusted his gut. And anyway, she'd nearly said as much when she'd walked out, hadn't she. "A team has to believe in each other. And I don't believe in you anymore."

I don't believe in you anymore. She'd said it to Oliver. But "Don't. It's too late -- I'm out." That had been said to Digg. It was Digg she'd expected to do something, Digg she'd been waiting on. But waiting for what?

 _It's too late it's too late it's too late it's too late_ the words resonated in time with his hits: hook hook JAB hook hook CROSS hook hook JAB. It's too late it's too late it's too late.

Waiting for what? Dinah knew what a good team looked like. Hook hook cross, hook hook jab. I don't believe in you any more. She didn't see a good team here. Jab cross hook. Why not?

Because it wasn't. John took a deep breath as he forced himself back from the bag, forced himself to face it squarely. Team Arrow was a collection of spectacular individuals, but it was a terrible team.

Or rather, John admitted, it was a fantastic team... and three outsiders. When John had returned from military prison he'd seen the schism in the team, and had worked to rectify it. He'd helped Rene reconcile himself to working under authority; he'd reached out to Dinah to help her adapt to the new life. And then...

He made his way to a chair and sat down heavily. He stayed there, his face in his hands, for a minute; two. Then he grabbed his phone and headed determinedly for the elevator.


	6. Chapter 6

Dinah looked down as her phone buzzed. It was a text from Diggle:

> **Can we meet?**

Dinah sighed and thumbed in a response:

> **I'm not coming back, Digg.**

When her phone buzzed again, she braced herself for arguments, guilt-trips, appeals to sentiment, to friendship -- even while she wondered what Digg's tactic would be. But his text just said:

> **I know. Can we meet?**

Dinah frowned, but Digg had earned at least a civil conversation. She texted him back. Unless he was trying to manipulate her, she thought as she put her phone away, in which case she would kick him through the plate-glass window and leave him to pay for the milkshakes.

An hour later at Big Belly, Digg waved as Dinah came through the front door. Since he already had two baskets and two glasses in front of him, she threaded her way over to the booth and sat down. 

She accepted the basket he pushed over to her and inspected the toppings. Ketchup and pickles. She took a bite and found the burger done medium-well. Vince couldn't have done a better job of ordering for her.

"So why are we here?" she asked as she swiped a french fry through her shake -- vanilla, no cherry, extra whipped cream. "So you can show off that you know my Big Belly order?"

"I've been paying attention," Digg said. "I try to, with people on my team. You learn a lot, paying attention to the little things. But then, somehow, I missed the big things." He pushed his untouched burger aside. "Dinah, I came to say I'm sorry. I failed you. I failed all of you."

Dinah had been an undercover investigator; she had good control over her expression. She kept her voice calm as she swiped another french fry through her shake, although she then let it hang there, dripping onto her burger. "Seems a little harsh, John, don't you think?"

John grimaced. "Not really." As Dinah opened her mouth to argue, he continued. "The team's been split since I showed up. Oliver treats you guys like second-class citizens, and that's gonna cause problems. Team Arrow can't be a team while that's going on."

"So? What does that have to do with you?" When Digg didn't respond, she added, "John it's not your job to --"

"Really." Digg interrupted. "Then whose job is it? You think emotional intelligence is whose responsibility? Oliver's?"

Despite her determination not to get drawn into the discussion, Dinah couldn't help snorting at the idea of Oliver Queen as confidante and counselor to the team.

"Felicity? Curtis?" Digg spread his hands. "You see a job that needs doing, and you either do it yourself or you find someone to do it. That's what makes a good team. You know that, Dinah, even if no one else on the team does. I saw the problem. I'm the best qualified to deal with the problem. That makes it my job. And I didn't do it." He broke off and swallowed. "And I'm sorry."


End file.
